AMEA // World Museum of Erotic Art2015-03-20T02:28:55Zhttp://www.ameanet.org/feed/atomWordPressAdminhttp://ameanet.orghttp://www.ameanet.org/?p=22182015-03-08T19:57:45Z2015-03-08T19:57:45ZStick It Places. Hand Job. Clothing Optional. Popping Cherries, Cuddle Party, Foursome With Benefits, Bukake.…Got your attention? These are just some of the smartly designed Rewards that are intended to stimulate support, if not conversation, for Sin City Gallery’s crowd-funding campaign for its publication and printing of a hardcover book series from four years of the annual renown international juried art exhibition 12 Inches of Sin: So Much Art You Can Barely Fit It All In. Sin City Gallery is excited to launch its innovative Kickstarter campaign to melt the hearts of the most ardent critics of art.

Sin City Gallery is dedicated to providing a serious professional forum, exhibit space, and series of publications for practitioners of erotic art who have too long been marginalized or excluded from so much of the art world. The gallery has put together an amazing series of four books with color illustrations, critical text, and incredible design. Throughout its history, the groundbreaking exhibit 12 Inches of Sin has featured the most innovative, daring, and beautiful examples of erotic art. Gallery founder Dr. Laura Henkel says:

“For the inaugural call for art four years ago, the competition received forty submissions from artists from five different countries. As the exhibition has grown and become more established, more competitive, and increasingly international in scope, we have achieved a record of three hundred submissions from twenty countries. Imagine a glossy, color illustrated collection of contemporary erotica all yours to browse at your leisure, a treasure trove of sexiness and gorgeousness. There’s a little something for everyone. I hope everyone shares the Kickstarter campaign because the Rewards are so well conceived and designed to de-stigmatize the general assumption that all erotic art is porn. Art is art and good art should ignite the senses.”

Please share this FUN Kickstarter with your friends. It will certainly bring a smile to your face and theirs! To learn more about the most memorable and humorous Kickstarter campaign ever…

Co‐curators Kymara Lonergan and Hans van der Kamp have selected photographers based on their contributions to the LBGTQ community and the historic value of their work. According to Lonergan, “We challenged each photographer to provide images of what they see as the sensual from behind the lens, and many of the images are not typical of the photographers’ known work.”

Mick Rock is known for his iconic images of Queen, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and Blondie, and, as David Bowie’s official photographer, shot some of the most memorable images of Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. He is highly respected as the premier photographer of Rock and Roll. Mick has authored and has been the subject of many books about his work in the music industry.

Jan van Breda is highly respected for his work as a photographer for the Dutch newspaper Het Parool. Known for his unique style, his passion is documenting the people of the community and the gay scene. His work is included in the permanent collection of The Hermitage Museum, Amsterdam and he is the recipient of the prestigious Silver Camera Award.

Hans van der Kamp has spent his career photographing the culture of Europe’s sexual underground. He is considered to be an expert in sexual culture and his works are included in the Kinsey Institute collection and have appeared in numerous exhibitions in the US, Europe and Russia. He is the founder of The Amsterdam Museum of Erotic Art.

Lee Black Childers is considered to be one of the finest living photographers today. He was a member of Andy Warhol’s entourage of creative associates who were instrumental in documenting the music scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s. He also worked as the stage manager for Warhol’s “Pork,” and was David Bowie and Iggy Pop’s tour manager in 1972 and 1974. Lee has documented every aspect of his career with his camera, from his early Warhol days to his work as a manager with some of Rock and Roll’s most famous performers. He has recently published a book of his images and life story in the UK.

Anton Perrich, American filmmaker, photographer and video artist, has been a NYC fixture since 1970, when he worked with Andy Warhol as a contributor to “Interview Magazine.” He is the founder of “Night” Magazine, and is known for his iconic images of the New York City night life and culture.

Dennis Morris, originally from Jamaica, resides in the UK. He was the official photographer for Bob Marley and The Wailers and The Sex Pistols. He is the author of Destroy and was an art director at Island Records. He is known for incorporating the sexuality of his subjects into his imagery.

Sue Rynski is a Paris‐based photographer whose career began during the early Detroit Punk Rock scene. Her images of Iggy Pop, Ron Asheton and Niagara Detroit have been exhibited worldwide, including Les Rencontres d’ Arles Photographie.

Clayton Patterson, photographer, artist, videographer and folk historian, has been documenting the life and times of the Lower East Side of Manhattan since 1980.

Stanley Stellar is considered one of the seminal photographers of the early period of gay liberation. His photographs have become known as iconic historic images, have been on the covers of many international magazines, and have appeared in numerous anthologies.

Michael Rosen has been photographing since 1977 and is known for his disarmingly realistic style of erotic and sexually explicit portraiture.

Charles Gatewood is known as “The Godfather of the Sexual Underground.” He has been photographing the sexually avant‐garde since the 1960s. His work has appeared in many publications including Rolling Stone magazine.

All art in the exhibition is for sale. An opening celebration is planned for March 22, 6‐9 PM with music by The 1913 Book of Pleasure and catering by Kymara Events. The exhibit remains open from March 23 to 26, 12‐6pm, at the Leslie‐Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art Old Basement Gallery located in Soho at 127‐B Prince St., New York City.

About the Kymara Gallery
The Kymara Gallery, founded in 1985 in Kennebunkport, Maine, promotes and preserves the creative accomplishments of artists and musicians whose work may not be exhibited in a traditional gallery space or may under other circumstances be destroyed due to its subject matter. The gallery celebrates human sexuality, love, and social commentary through fine art, performance, and music, in a supportive environment. Regularly scheduled shows are held at the gallery space, and with community partners who share the same vision of artistic freedom. “Happenings” are three‐day events that illustrate as accurately as possible, historic moments in the rise of the artistic Underground. Health education is always included at our events on such topics as HIV/Aids, sexually transmitted diseases and other public health issues. The Gallery promotes both established and emerging artists and musicians. For more information: Kymara.com.

About the Leslie‐Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art
Best place for gay culture, Time Out New York: New York’s Best 2012

The Leslie‐Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is the first and only dedicated gay and lesbian art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve gay and lesbian art, and foster the artists who create it. The Museum has a permanent collection of over 22,000 objects, 6‐8 major exhibitions annually, artist talks, film screenings, readings, THE ARCHIVE ‐ a quarterly art newsletter, a membership program, and a research library. The Leslie‐Lohman Museum is operated by the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, Inc., a non‐profit founded in 1987 by Charles W. Leslie and Fritz Lohman who have supported gay and lesbian artists for over 30 years. The Leslie‐Lohman Museum embraces the rich creative history of the gay and lesbian art community by informing, inspiring, entertaining and challenging all who enter its doors. The Museum is located at 26 Wooster Street, in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. Admission is free, and hours are 12pm‐6pm Tuesday through Sunday. The Museum is closed Monday and all major holidays. The Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit organization and is exempt from taxation under section 501(c)3 of the IRS Code.

Hans van der Kamp, internationally respected photographer who is known for his unique style of capturing extreme sexuality through portraiture will exhibit his recent works at The Lightroom Gallery, Hasselt, Belgium on February 16th.

Van der Kamp is well-known internationally and his longest running exhibit continues in the first Museum For Erotic Art in Moscow located on the Novy Arbat close to the Kremlin.

His works have been called provocative, perverse, and pornographic by many Russians, yet his exhibits continue to draw record crowds.

The exhibit, “Back and Forth” illustrates the passion that the photographer captures through his lens. Trusting subjects display known and unique kinks wearing their finest array and appear to have fun doing it. This is a wild photographic journey that is not to be missed.

Van der Kamp’s exhibit “Back and Forth” will kick off a collaborative effort with curator Kymara Lonergan, recent co-owner of van der Kamp’s highly regarded Amsterdam Museum of Erotic Art and owner of The Kymara Gallery, Kennebunkport, Maine. The show will be moving to New York City to be part of the “XXX” group show that features seven of the world’s most highly regarded photographers. It will take place in The Leslie/Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art Old Basement Gallery, SOHO, NYC, and Kennebunkport, Maine in the Summer. An opening celebration for “Back and Forth” will take place on February 16th at 15:00 and will run until March 16th.

To experience the vision of Hans van der Kamp through the photographer’s lens is breathtaking. Eccentric individuals displaying their raw emotion during moments of their most hard core kink, are perfectly captured to portray the essence of the subject’s personality and passion.

It is evident that van der Kamp loves what he does. The photographer’s own gritty sexuality oozes from each image, weaving the titillating story of the relationship between photographer and subject.

The viewer is left to fill in the delicious blanks by observing the passion, fierceness, lust and ecstasy carved on the subject’s faces as they display their deepest secrets to the photographer.

To capture the deepest moment of human lust is a rare talent that has been perfected by few. Hans van der Kamp has managed to do this along with maintaining the composition and professional technical quality that is inherent in only a master photographer.

This show is a “must see” and will leave the viewer wanting to return to continue reading the ongoing story of human sexuality that has been created by one the most highly regarded photographers of human eroticism.

Although French artist and book illustrator André Collot (1897-1976) created some very romantic and soft impressions of couples having sex, he is best known for images like the ones we have selected for this exhibit. [ Read more… ]

Gloria Brame: The show was rudely interrupted by a network crash at the mid-point. Ho hum. The Internet. We cheerfully picked up with the main topic in Part 2.

Gloria Glickstein Brame (born August 20, 1955) is a U.S. writer and sex therapist based in Athens, Georgia. A member of the American College of Sexologists and a clinical sexologist, Brame earned degrees in both Human Sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (2000), and an M.A. in English Literature from Columbia University. Her sex therapy practice specializes in consensual BDSM, sexual fetishism and sexual dysfunction. She is also a lifestyle dominant. [More on Wikipedia – Gloria Brame]

1995 or 1996?

Actually we are not really sure what the exact day was that AMEA emerged on the Internet. Some claim the site started earlier than 1996 because the oldest file, the 1930s dancing girl to the right had a time stamp of 1995 and was found on a hard drive of a 386 Windows PC.

So AMEA must have started either in the end of 1995 or the beginning of 1996, making it hard to pinpoint its anniversary. We ended up picking July 17th as the anniversary, since this is the birthday of Hans van der Kamp, founder of AMEA who is still with us as consultant and curator of this virtual museum.

A joke

What we know for sure is that AMEA was started by Van der Kamp as a joke. Or even a form of protest of the founder (calling himself “a group of artists”) who was at that point in time spending most of his hours on one of his other projects, a Dutch online literary magazine that kicked off earlier in 1994.

In 1994 very few Dutch authors believed that the Internet was anything more than a nuisance, or at best a hype. Some of them were still using typewriters and texts were hand delivered and quite a bit of text had to be retyped before it could be published.

Also the motivation of the editors was low and one night none of them showed up on an editorial meeting. Van der Kamp decided to spend his evening creating a parody on the then very popular membership sex sites. He created one page with a lot of golden keys on it, created one exhibit and one picture of the day.

This mini-site was named AMEA // World Museum of Erotic Art. Van der Kamp simply could not think of a name that would better mock erotica sites.

The golden keys on the front page were supposed to be linking to the largest collection of erotica ever, while in fact there was nothing there. However the picture of the day and the exhibit were a success.

At that time search engines and directories like Altavista and Yahoo were trying their utmost to be family friendly. Altavista was less scrupulous and was gaining ground on the directory of Yahoo, where actual people handpicked links from the web.

Since Amea was not so hardcore as most sex sites, Yahoo decided to link to it as one of the very few erotica sites they allowed to be listed in their directory.

Amea became an overnight success and Van der Kamp was forced to come up with the exhibits and remove the golden keys. From then on the number of visitors increased dramatically, mostly due to the many publications in newspapers, books and magazines worldwide.

Van der Kamp who is also an art photographer has often stated that 15 years devoted to one site is simply too much for him, so this year will be his final year.

Artist Michael Hinkle started modeling for photographers that were exploring the male nude. Working for photo-shoots came natural to him. The resulting images were moments in time that he collected and organized. They also became the main inspiration for his strong, vivid and colorful paintings.

David’s family moved often when he was young, making it hard to make friends, so he passed the time impersonating his favorite comedians and making pencil drawings of celebrity faces as Al Pacino and Woody Allen. But it was photography for which he had a passion, even at the age of 9 David clicked away with an old rangefinder his uncle gave him. So as time passed he focused solely on photography, and then worked as a professional photographer in advertising. Based out of Chicago David won many accolades and awards for his establishing the ‘selective focus’ technique. After a time of transformation he turned to painting which later included bending wire into sculpture.

Now he lives and works in Miami Beach and is an artist-in-resident at the Artcenter/SF.